1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication systems, and deals more particularly with methods, systems, computer program products, and methods of doing business by using various types of media to enhance greetings and/or responses provided to users of these communication systems, for example by providing music or sound for a telephone caller to hear, or video or image for a video phone caller to view, or icons to be displayed to a message sender who is using an instant messaging system or e-mail.
2. Description of the Related Art
Face-to-face communication between people involves many parallel communication paths. We derive information from body language, from words, from intonation, from facial expressions, from the distance between our bodies, and so forth. Distance communication, such as phone calls, voice mail, e-mail, or exchanging instant mail messages, on the other hand, involves only a few of these communication paths. Users may therefore have to take extra actions (which may or may not be successful) if they wish to try to overcome the limitations so imposed.
Distance communicating is becoming more prevalent in our society. Voice mail systems have become widely used in recent years, with most people having voice mail capability on their office phones and some type of answering machine capability or system for their home phones and mobile phones. Video phones are not as widely used as conventional telephones, but when a caller and called party connect using video phones, the communications that result from this type of phone conversation will be greatly enhanced and will go a long way in making up for the disadvantages imposed by physical distance. E-mail is used by millions of people around the world as a means of distance communicating.
Instant messaging systems are a popular communications mechanism for many people, and provide for instant, real-time communication between users who are connected to the system through an on-line or electronic networking environment such as the Internet, World Wide Web (hereinafter, xe2x80x9cWebxe2x80x9d), or corporate internal intranets. Examples of instant messaging systems include Yahoo!(copyright) Messenger, AOL Instant MessengerSM, and Sametime(copyright). (xe2x80x9cYahoo!xe2x80x9d is a registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc., xe2x80x9cAOL Instant Messengerxe2x80x9d is a service mark of America Online, Inc., and xe2x80x9cSametimexe2x80x9d is a registered trademark of Lotus Development Corporation.)
Instant messaging systems provide real-time awareness of who is logged on. Typically, an instant messaging system (hereinafter, xe2x80x9cIMSxe2x80x9d) user has an address book or xe2x80x9cbuddy listxe2x80x9d containing names or nicknames for those people with whom he communicates. The entries in this address book are used for selecting a message recipient. The IMS typically indicates, using a visual cue (such as different icons or different fonts), which of the people are logged on to the system and which are not. When the message sender and the target recipient are both currently logged on to an IMS (which may be the same IMS, or a different IMS), the message can be delivered and presented to the recipient nearly instantly (depending on network delay). Instant messaging systems are well known in the art, and a detailed description thereof is not deemed necessary to an understanding of the present invention.
In spite of the increasing prevalence of distance communications, or perhaps because of it, people who want to contact someone who happens to be unavailable are often frustrated and unhappy with their communications experience. Many people who communicate by telephone, for example, are annoyed when they reach the called party""s voice mail system or answering machine. Often, they choose not to leave any message at all, preferring instead to try again later to xe2x80x9creach a human beingxe2x80x9d. In addition to causing user frustration, this situation is also time consuming and unproductive. Furthermore, voice mail messages often provide very little useful information for the caller.
Accordingly, there is a need for techniques that provide more enjoyable and more productive ways for people to communicate and to exchange messages, where these techniques may also alleviate some of the disadvantages in distance communications.
An object of the present invention is to provide more enjoyable and more productive ways for people to communicate and/or to exchange messages.
Another object of the present invention is to provide ways of alleviating some of the disadvantages in distance communications.
Yet another object of the present invention is to define techniques for enhancing greetings and/or responses in communication systems using various types of media.
A further object of the present invention is to enhance greetings and/or responses by adding contextual information (which preferably pertains to the intended message recipient).
Still another object of the present invention is to define techniques for using stored calendar information of a message recipient to enhance that recipient""s automated greetings to message senders.
A further object of the present invention is to provide techniques for allowing message recipients to customize the automated enhancement of their greetings.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide new methods of doing business whereby media files to be used with (or instead of) greetings and/or responses can be merchandised to consumers.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be set forth in part in the description and in the drawings which follow and, in part, will be obvious from the description or may be learned by practice of the invention.
To achieve the foregoing objects, and in accordance with the purpose of the invention as broadly described herein, in a first aspect the present invention provides methods, systems, computer program products, and methods of doing business by enhancing greetings used in communication systems. In this first aspect, this technique preferably comprises: receiving, from a message initiator, an incoming message for an intended message recipient, where the intended message recipient does not answer the incoming message; programmatically selecting a media file to be incorporated with the intended message recipient""s greeting for rendering to a message initiator, wherein the selected media file conveys contextual information pertaining to the intended recipient; and rendering the selected media file and greeting to the message initiator. This aspect may further comprise programmatically consulting the intended message recipient""s electronic calendar to determine his current status, and wherein the selected media file is selected to correspond to the current status. The selected media file might be rendered before or after rendering the greeting, as a replacement for the greeting, or mixed with the greeting as background.
The message exchange may be an e-mail message exchange, and the greeting may be an e-mail response message or an instant message generated by an automated function, in which case the technique preferably comprises: receiving, from the message initiator, an incoming e-mail message for the intended message recipient when the automated function is activated for generating the response message for the intended message recipient""s incoming e-mail messages; programmatically determining the selected media file to be incorporated with the generated response message; and returning the selected media file and generated response message to the message initiator.
In a second aspect, this technique comprises enhancing a message exchange during a temporary suspension in the exchange, by rendering a media file that has been programmatically selected to convey contextual information pertaining to a party to the exchange.
The techniques disclosed herein may also be used advantageously to provide new methods of doing business. As one example, prerecorded media files to be used in greeting enhancements may be merchandised to companies and/or individuals. As another example, the improved communication systems that result from incorporating the techniques of the present invention can be offered to customers as a value-add service (e.g., of a telephone company or Internet service provider). Merchandising the media files preferably further comprises: receiving requests for selected ones of the pre-recorded media files for incorporating with greetings to be rendered for message initiators to convey contextual information pertaining to an intended recipient of the message; and providing the selected ones, in response to receiving the requests. The message initiators may be callers using telephones, callers using video phones, or message senders using e-mail or instant messaging systems. A subscription, a one-time charge, or a pay-per-use model is preferably used to charge for the merchandised media files.
The techniques of the present invention may also be adapted to convey contextual information pertaining to the message initiator. In this optional adaptation, the present invention preferably comprises: initiating, by the message initiator, an inbound message for the message recipient, where the message recipient does not answer the inbound message; programmatically selecting the media file to be incorporated with the message initiator""s message, based on the contextual information (which may, for example, be obtained from the message initiator""s electronic calendar or other context); and rendering the selected media file along with, or as, the message initiator""s message for the message recipient.
The present invention will now be described with reference to the following drawings, in which like reference numbers denote the same element throughout.